


The Thing from the Crypt; Or, Two Old Adversaries Need To Kiss And Make Up Already

by Purrs



Series: Heterodynes Do As They Please [3]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 23:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrs/pseuds/Purrs
Summary: There's something in among the stone and bone.





	The Thing from the Crypt; Or, Two Old Adversaries Need To Kiss And Make Up Already

She stands among the tombs, silent, unmoving, faithful. She requires no breath nor meat nor sleep. She does not blink. She is precisely as she has been for the past hundred and seventy-four years.

A woman’s voice carries from somewhere beyond the entrance, drawing nearer. “...grave, you say? Show me.”

She knows this voice, knows it like bones and rags. It is an impossibility. She moves like a whip, crouching before the tomb and digging frantic fingers under stone to force it aside and staring and _staring_ into the skull-sockets of the skeleton she guards. Dead. Undeniably _dead_ , as it should be. And yet.

Three sets of footsteps echo their way into the crypt. She does not turn around.

“Ah,” a man says. The Heterodyne. “So apparently that old statue isn’t as much of a statue as everyone thought.”

And from behind, through lips which long ago rotted away and teeth which lie motionless before her, the Heterodyne Girl says: “Otilia.”

She lets out a screech like tortured metal, pivoting and leaping and knocking the Girl to the ground. The Girl wrests herself from her grasp and rolls to the side, grinning that world-ending grin, tensed to attack.

Then someone (she had forgotten there were others in the room) flings himself on the Girl, and a thrill of satisfaction runs through her in the half-second before she, too, is tackled.

“What’s going on here?” the one on the Girl (the Heterodyne’s brother) yells.

She forces the Heterodyne off of her and gets her feet under her, preparing to—

“Castle!” the Heterodyne calls. The floor opens up into a pit, and she’s falling and she’s falling until _“Stop that!_ ” and the stones move back beneath her and raise her up until the walls of the pit are _just_ too tall for her to jump out of. She reaches for the walls, to try and climb out, but they move away from her fingers. She’s well and truly trapped.

“You don’t let me have any fun,” the voice of the Castle grumbles.

“ _No killing_ ,” the Heterodyne insists. “It was a rule before Euphrosynia showed up and it’s still a rule now.”

“Maiming, then?” the Castle says hopefully.

She notices the walls of her prison have grown sharp all of a sudden.

“The second I want someone maimed, if _ever_ , I will _let you know_.” The spikes recede and the Heterodyne sighs. “All right. Want to clarify what that was about, Auntie?”

“She was trying to kill me,” the Girl says, flippant, and sticks her head over the pit to get a good look. “I was returning the favor.”

She roars wordlessly up at the Girl.

“‘No killing’ applies to you too,” the brother says. “We’ve told you that already.”

“Yes, yes, and I’ve been very good. Can’t I have this one exception?”

“ _No._ ”

“ _Fine_.” The Girl waves down at her.

“Get down here so I can kill you!” she screams.

“Oh, see, _she_ gets to murder if she likes,” the Girl says.

The Heterodyne scowls at the Girl from the other side of the pit. “No, she doesn’t, _either_. It sounded like you know her?”

“That’s Otilia. Do you not recognize a Muse when you see one?” the Girl says.

“ _What_ —” the brother says, and then, “Oh, of _course_. The famous masterpieces that have all been lost or broken, and meanwhile _we’ve_ just had one standing around doing nothing in our _basement_ this entire time. Why do I expect anything else from this family.”

She stills, freezes the way she has been frozen these long years. Lost? _Broken?_ Who would...how long…

The Heterodyne looks her over and says, “I think you broke her, Barry.”

“No,” she says, because she isn’t broken. _She_ isn’t broken. How many of her sisters are? In all the time that she’s been here, _protecting_ and _keeping safe_ someone who doesn’t even have the decency to _be dead_. In all the time that she’s been _standing around doing nothing_ , as the brother so aptly put it. She looses a keening wail like the scrape of metal on glass, like fresh blood on snow, like loss.

“Scratch that, you just made her mad,” the Heterodyne corrects himself.

_Mad_ would be a much more pleasant state of being. Her legs give way beneath her (the motionless years weakened them, she justifies, even as she knows it’s not the case) and she slumps on the floor. The wall would have supported her weight, except the wall moves out of the way, so she ends up limp on her back in an entirely undignified position. She can’t bring herself to care.

What good is she? The purpose she dedicated herself to has turned out to be purposeless. She has not kept anyone safe in doing this, not when the Girl is alive and unguarded and has been so for who knows how long. She has spent the better part of two centuries protecting nothing but worthless bones, and all the while losing her sisters without even knowing it. _Useless_.

“Are...are you all right?” the Heterodyne calls down, tentative, after minutes have passed.

She closes her eyes, opens them. Not wholly useless, not inherently so. “I was given the duty,” she says, her voice perfectly even like ice, “of protecting the Heterodyne Girl, and of keeping her safe.”

“And trying to kill her is right in line with that. Makes sense,” the brother says.

“Keeping her safe _for other people_ ,” she stresses. “I know the harm she can cause, and I won’t allow it.”

“Great,” the Heterodyne says, “that’s what we’re trying to do, except without the whole ‘killing her’ part.”

She stares up at him. Does he really expect her to believe that _Heterodynes_ are trying to _prevent_ harm?

“Bill,” the brother says, “all she knows of us is from when we were down here to bury dear old Dad.”

“Oh, right. Ugh, it’s been years since we had to deal with people getting the wrong idea, I really thought we were done with that,” the Heterodyne says. “Look, Otilia, we’re not the type to uphold the family legacy.”

“If anything, they’re doing the opposite.” The Girl groans. “You’re hardly ever in Mechanicsburg, always going out and playing at heroes. And when you _are_ home—I can see how a hospital _might_ be useful, but did you boys really have to build it over the flesh yards? They were perfectly good flesh yards!”

“We’ve been _over_ this, Auntie,” the brother says.

“And it wouldn’t even make a difference if they did still exist, because you’re going to be good, _right?_ ” the Heterodyne presses.

“Spoilsports,” the Girl tosses back. “But yes, yes, whatever the Lord Heterodyne wishes.” The Heterodyne grimaces at the title.

Hm.

“She _is_ cooperating,” the Heterodyne insists.

She stands. “I will be the judge of that.”

The Heterodyne tenses. “How so?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Oh! We’ll be glad to have you.” He relaxes. “A _Muse_ ,” he adds to himself under his breath, wonderment in his voice.

The Castle lifts her up, brings the stones together as if there never has been a pit. Before they leave—before she leaves, for the first time in five generations—Otilia returns to the tomb marked _Euphrosynia_. She reaches inside, lifts the Heterodyne Girl’s deceitful skull in one hand, applies pressure until it first cracks then collapses. She allows the pieces to fall back in and closes the tomb. She stands and walks out.

There never was anything in this room that mattered.


End file.
